A note before we begin. It’s been a while since I’ve written anything for the magi. It’s not my favorite thing to do. But I wrote this as an introduction to a book on scripting magic I put together a couple of years ago, particularly about form. I’ll be the first to say that a few of my views and maybe even my tone nowdays has changed. That being said the bulk of what is written here I still fully believe.
You’ll notice it builds a premise and then doesn’t deliver it. That’s becuase the rest of it would be the body of the book. Besides you’ll get more value from studying forms if you yourself find them anyway. But if you’re interested in the form and want to know more, let me know. For the magi out there, I hope you find some food for thought.
Aristotle Poetics as Applied to the Conjuring Arts: (By Way of Introduction)
“The poetic arts are distinguished by their objects.” This simple phrase marks the second point that Aristotle makes in his treatise Poetics. Many tricks are seen this way in the eyes of an audience. The torn and restored newspaper is seen as the newspaper trick. The gypsy thread is known as the thread trick. It doesn’t matter that the effect is the same. Torn and Restored. That’s all that is happening. You’ll see many magicians doing this in their act, tricks that are essentially the same effect, just done with different objects. This is why when you’ve spread the cards to offer a selection, you hear someone say “I’ve seen this one before.” Magicians get mad at this, but the laymen are right. They have seen it before. To them it’s “the card trick,” a card is chosen, somehow you find it. Doesn’t matter how, the trick is the same.
How can we fix this? Scripting, it is the only answer. I will not let you pick a card, until I’ve set the scene, until I’ve begun my narrative. The trick doesn’t start at “pick a card,” it starts when we begin our conversation. I now have the opportunity to decide what this trick is to my spectators, and what it will not be is “the card trick.”
I do a trick about Richard Potter, America’s first magician: a black magician. The effect is simple, and a card is chosen; yet, no one has ever described it as a card trick. It is not a card trick, the trick is nearly immaterial. It is a trick about race and race relations in my country of America. And it is a personal narrative about my place in culture and society being of mixed-race. This is what the trick is, and because it is clear to me, it is clear in my presentation, and it is clear to my audience. The trick begins when my narrative begins, the trick ends, when the narrative ends about 5 minutes later. The trick, as magicians see it, lasts barely one minute.
In Our Magic by Maskeleyne and Devant they list many rules for magic and its construction as well as the degrees of art and artistry. The most important rule to my mind is Justification. Because it is the most broad yet poignant. Justification is not only a rule within a trick, ie. the Vernonesque naturalness of holding a coin to make a comment and then taking it to justify your action or perhaps sweeping some dust off of the table to justify your false take.
But more importantly without the trick, meaning an answer to the question “Why are you doing a trick in the first place?”
The unwillingness of magicians to be vulnerable is why magic is often shit. Don’t get me wrong, it can be fun and fooling, but as Jeff McBride says “there’s two kinds of audiences, those that are there to remember and those that are there to forget.” Most magicians are only worthy of playing to the latter. This is why bar magic is ever more popular and quick visual close up walk around. But it’s damn hard to sell theater tickets. The audience isn’t accustomed to seeing magic worth remembering, just a bunch of magicians who “go for the laugh” as it were and most often fail to get even that. They are not artists, they are cover bands. They have nothing to say, many times, they don’t want to say anything. They tell jokes they didn’t write and their tricks are not their own. They just want to do a trick. Stick to performing at magic conventions and bars, most magicians aren’t worthy of a theatrical environment.
If magic is to be an art, then its objective should be the same as art. The brush strokes, the rhetoric techniques, the notes are all a means to an end, not the end. A trick is not a work of art, it is a trick. The majority of magicians throughout history have focused on the wrong thing. Method and improving the trick. Throughout history those that have stood out have focused on one main thing, “what is the trick about?”
It is understandable though, with all the secrets of magic having been so impishly guarded for as long as they have, and frivolously too, the real secrets have remained, well, secret. In poetry you have poetic form; Robert Frost said “writing poetry without form is like playing tennis without a net.” In music and in songwriting there is form; blues form, balladry, etc. I ask you, what is there by way of form for writing magic, or for that matter constructing magic?
The answer, to date, I’ve never come across a book that has even addressed the question. There are books that have come close or that have graced similar subjects, but who said here’s a blues form: say X, say X again, then hit them with Y the punchline. If that is your struggle, if you have no form to write too, I encourage you to go find form. I offer you these forms 3, to get you started, there are an infinite number more and I’ve written to many. Some of the scripts, most of the scripts will never see the light of day. Those that do, tend to be quite clear in many ways, at least to me, which in the end is all that matters.
End Note: There you have it. An introduction to a blank page. I hope you magi go write good scripts. If you’re interested in more reach out, I’m here.
Very well described the need of Artistic value and Story line for a good show.